The Refugee Law Initiative (RLI) is pleased to announce full details of the 10th International Refugee Law Seminar Series, held jointly with UNHCR. The full series schedule is available at https://rli.sas.ac.uk/10th-international-refugee-law-seminar-series, and additional information about the next event in the series is below.
This series will explore the future of refugee protection in a global community. It will frame those discussions within the current ‘blueprint’ of the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR). Bringing together a range of speakers from academic, policy and lived experience, the series will present varied perspectives on the development of refugee protection and promote the visibility of, and engagement with, the GCR within UK academic and public audiences.
All seminars are free and open to the public. Registration is available through this website: rli.sas.ac.uk/events
More on the Next Event
Title: Is Return the Preferred Solution for Refugees?
Speaker: Megan Bradley, Associate Professor, McGill University
When: 4 December 2019, 6pm | Room 34, Senate House
Voluntary return is often hailed as the preferred solution to displacement. The Global Compact on Refugees, for example, states that “Voluntary repatriation in conditions of safety and dignity remains the preferred solution in the majority of refugee situations.” However, reasons for “preferring” return are rarely examined in detail, and given that returnees regularly face violence and impoverishment, many are understandably sceptical of this claim.
Focusing on the right of return – the key principle underpinning repatriation movements – this talk identifies key obstacles to refugee repatriation. It then explores four interlinked senses in which return may be morally valuable and in some cases even normatively preferable as a durable solution for refugees: first, that the right of return may serve as a means of upholding housing, land and property rights; second, that it may affirm and advance the equal rights of all citizens; third, that it embodies opposition to ethnic cleansing; and fourth, that it may be an important form of redress for refugees. This suggests that under the right circumstances return can advance morally valuable outcomes that other approaches to resolving displacement do not. While some persuasive arguments may be made for promoting return as the preferred solution to displacement, this should not translate into restrictions on the claims of individual refugees to pursue other solutions, such as local integration in host countries.
Even if refugees access other solutions, they retain a legitimate claim to return to their countries of origin. In this sense the possibility of return is essential to the resolution of refugee situations, even if it is not uniformly preferable.
More on Megan Bradley
Megan Bradley is an Associate Professor in Political Science and International Development Studies at McGill University. Her research focuses on refugees and internal displacement, humanitarianism, human rights, and efforts to redress massive injustices. Her books include Refugee Repatriation: Justice, Responsibility and Redress (Cambridge University Press, 2013), and Forced Migration, Reconciliation and Justice (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2015).
Alongside her research and teaching, Dr Bradley has worked with a range of organizations concerned with development, human rights and humanitarianism. From 2012-2014, she was a Fellow in the Foreign Policy Program at the Brookings Institution. She has also worked with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), and served as the Cadieux-Léger Fellow at Global Affairs Canada.